


You Can't Con an Honest Man

by interabang



Category: Heroes (TV 2006)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-26
Updated: 2009-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:14:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26956390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interabang/pseuds/interabang
Summary: Adam discovers someone else who shares his abilities.





	You Can't Con an Honest Man

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [comment-fic](https://comment-fic.livejournal.com/75029.html?thread=17483285#t17483285).

Adam watches her every day as she tries to hustle the people that pass by her on the street. Blue collars, white collars, rich trophy wives, disgruntled college students... She's not picky, that's for sure. Once in a while, she gets lucky and manages to sell an odd item that she'd obviously stolen or been given, but he can tell that she's not getting very far and, soon enough, she's bound to give up and go back to her miserable life under her adoptive father's strict, unyielding rules.  
  
"Come on," she snaps at the wary person in front of her, gesturing to the painting that Adam knows she'd gotten for free from that one psychic painter. "It's really worth a couple hundred, but I'll give it to you for sixty."  
  
Adam's not surprised in the least when the bloke pushes right past her, and that's when he makes his decision. He slips out of his nook in the alley and strides over to the short blonde, his hands in his pockets and a wry smile already on his face.  
  
She doesn't even notice him as he approaches her, but when she finally does, she looks up, glaring at Adam with such a hard intensity that he can't help but to chuckle a little.  
  
"You can't con an honest man," he tells her. "No way, no how. It can't be done."  
  
"Who said he's honest?" she shoots back after a brief pause.  
  
"It gets easier to read people when you've been around as long as I have," he says. "Trust me on that one."  
  
She snorts. "Yeah, okay, you're old. I get it."  
  
"Have you any idea _how_ old, Claire?"  
  
The young, indestructible girl before him had turned her head in the other direction, like she'd already dismissed him, but she whips her head back around, focusing on him with a clenched jaw and raised eyebrows.  
  
"How do you know my name?" she demands.  
  
"I have my sources." Stepping closer to Claire, he takes one hand out of his pocket and extends it toward her. "The name's Adam, and I think you'd do well to follow my lead if you want to make it in this world at all. Despite the..." Here he tilts his head to one side and gives her a meaningful look. "advantage you already possess."  
  
She's taken aback, as he knew she would be, and she eyes him shrewdly as she chews on her lower lip. He casts a quick glance over to her display of sad, inane merchandise, then meets her gaze again, his hand still outstretched.  
  
"I can help you," he says. "You don't have to do this alone. You need assistance, and, loathe as I really am to admit it, so do I."  
  
She blinks, then squares her shoulders, pushing out her chin to make her look tougher than she appears. "What do you need help with?"  
  
 _Ah. So she's quicker on her feet than he'd thought._  
  
"That will all come later, you can count on that," he tells her with a wink. "But for now, let's get you off of this filthy street, shall we?"  
  
Adam knows that, deep down, he hadn't even needed to bother asking. He's already got her sold on his deal, and he knows it.  
  
She bites her lip, shifting her focus at all the other bustling people on the sidewalk for a few seconds. Then, at last, she raises her hand to tentatively shake Adam's.  
  
"Get me out of here," she tells him in a low, yet less biting, tone.  
  
Pleased, Adam happily obliges.


End file.
